OpenClaw

OpenClaw is a single-user personal AI assistant designed to run on the user's own devices rather than a hosted service. It reaches the user through the messaging channels they already use — including WhatsApp, Telegram, Slack, Discord, Signal, iMessage, Matrix, IRC, Microsoft Teams and a WebChat surface, among roughly two dozen — and can speak and listen on macOS, iOS and Android, plus drive an agent-controlled visual Canvas.

Architecturally, a local-first Gateway acts as the control plane, coordinating sessions, channels, tools and events, while optional companion apps (a Windows Hub, a macOS menu-bar app, and iOS/Android nodes) add voice wake words, continuous talk mode, camera/screen capture and device control. Multi-agent routing can direct different channels, accounts or peers to isolated agents with their own workspaces and sessions.

Because it connects to real messaging surfaces, OpenClaw treats inbound DMs as untrusted input. By default unknown senders on channels like Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal and Discord must be approved through a pairing-code allowlist before the assistant will process their messages. For the single-user main session, tools run directly on the host with full access; non-main sessions can be confined to sandboxes (Docker by default, with SSH and OpenShell backends) that restrict which tools are allowed. It supports many model providers, is extended through a skills system, and is installed and managed via an interactive CLI onboarding flow.